This is an early watercolor study I did in 2007 from a photo I took at McKinney Falls near Austin, TX. I was first introduced to watercolor in August 2005 but have only played around with it. At that time a group of us amateurs met every Tuesday, set up some kind of subject matter, and tried to paint it. Not really a class for learning as much as a social get-together of WC enthusiasts.
Since then, I took one WC landscape class in Wichita, but didn't learn much. I would love to attend workshops and meet regularly with a real class to study and improve skills, but nothing is available in this area
(or on the rare occasions it is, it's priced out of my range). The group I first began in has since broken up.
So the next best thing: all those books on watercolor I've picked up the past few years in the used-book market. Last night I went through several and was surprised at how many did NOT have how-to demos to follow.
Yet some did, so I'm going to start working through those, aiming at one book per month. A friend in Utah who teaches oil painting recently told me that the best way to learn is to paint over and over and over. I'll try to take his advice . . . .
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I love it! It's wonderful. When I viewed it in my news feed reader, I honestly couldn't tell which was the photo at first.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Chel! I chose to post this one because it is one of the few painted that year that I actually liked.
ReplyDeleteVicky, this is amazing! I had to look at it closely to find out it wasn't a photograph. You're off to a great start. Even if a book doesn't have demos, I still learn a lot and sometimes I'll just see if I can duplicate that painting even though there are no step-by-steps directions. It makes you think a little more creatively in solving problems.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Krista! The painting is only around 4 or 5" square so I niggled to my heart's content!
ReplyDeleteI like your thoughts on how duplicating a painting without a demo can actually teach creative problem solving. Maybe that's more what I need.